The peaceful day at Greene's mansion was disrupted when Freya couldn't find Hera anywhere, even when the sun was already shining brightly above their heads.

They looked everywhere, but Hera was nowhere to be seen. She is not in her room, the library, the garden, the living room, or the kitchen, nor is she in the laundry room, just in case. But there was no sign of Hera.

Her lady hadn't returned from her trip to the city in more than a half-day.

“Did you manage to find Lady Hera?” Freya asked hastily as she spotted Rayla approaching her in the living room, where Lady Ruth sat in front of the fireplace with a pale expression of worry, while Mrs. Oz and Jaz attempted to calm her down.

“The kitchen never received their groceries, therefore Hera must not have returned from the city at all.”

“It was her first time going out alone. Maybe she found a hidden gem in the city and was blown away by it.”

“Or she could be in an orphanage.” Freya said, adding to their speculation about where Hera could be. That was the only place that came to her mind. Where else could she go-...

Freya's face became pale as she recalled what Zane had told her about Hera's plans. She shook her head inwardly, no way. Zane promises to persuade Hera to let her go with them. How could they have left her here?

If that's the case, what should she tell Lady Ruth... or the Duke?

“I will see whether she's in the orphanage. Freya, could you see if she's still in town and we could meet there, near the city hall?” Rayla strided towards the closet and rummaged through it to take out her coat.

Freya followed after Rayla and took her own coat out of the closet.

Ruth stared blankly at the back of Freya and Rayla as they walked away from the front door. Something felt heavy in her chest, as if something was tugging at her heart and plunging her into the black abyss, leaving her breathless.

Ruth turned to face Mrs. Oz. “You are right, she may do something she likes in the city... by herself. Hera is going to be fine.” She prayed quietly, her fists clenched in front of her chest.

Freya went to every store she thought her lady might be interested in and wandered around. A bookstore, bakery, and tea shop, but no one saw Hera that day.

Sadly, there isn't much place that will catch her lady's interest. As far as she knows about Hera.

About half an hour after searching for her lady, Freya had no idea where to go next. She let her legs carry her along with a swarm of people heading somewhere.

By the time she realized what she was doing, she was standing alone on an empty plot of land near the shore, not far from the city.

Freya's eyes narrowed slightly. She reached out her hand, eyebrow raised high, as if attempting to touch something in the air, convinced there was something there.

Freya's lips twitched when her hand touched something invisible and a small smile appeared on her face. Freya found her lady, so she looked around for a place to sit down and wait.

She was not sure what Hera and Zane were up to beyond the barrier, but Freya had already promised that man that she would turn blind eyes if she found out that Hera had done something questionable. Her lady must have a reason for doing all of that, including running away from her own house, and Freya must get her lady to trust her enough to tell her the reason herself.

She just hopes Hera comes out of that barrier before Rayla comes and finds her here, just sitting calmly and not looking for her lady.

 

---

 

Zane couldn't understand why Hera wouldn't allow him out of her shadow at such a crucial moment, and instructed him to wait until they brought her here before knocking them out cold.

He waited for Hera to awaken and stared at the two men who had been knocked out and tied up after they brought the unconscious Hera to this cabin. They seem somehow familiar.

“Do you remember them?”

Hera's hoarse voice was heard from behind Zane. She held her pounding forehead and staggered slowly to her feet.

“You might not remember them.” Hera brushed the dust off her skirt and retrieved a bottle from her pocket. “Thank goodness it's not broken.”

Zane's eyebrows furrowed at the suspicious-looking greenish bottle his master casually held in her palm. “What are you going to do with it?”

“... You tell me when you remember who they are and what they did to me.”

The suspicious-looking greenish bottle contained the leaf extract from the starlight flowers she had hurriedly made the night before. The poison she mixed with a little stabilizer from the flower's petal was not lethal, but it was enough to induce excruciating pain when someone drank it or came into contact with it.

That type of suffering that no one, not even medical professionals, will be able to identify what caused it for years to come. That's precisely what she wanted to happen to them.

Zane squatted in front of the two men, still narrowing his eyes, trying to remember who they were and why Hera seemed to have a bitter grudge against them.

“Take a look around you. Didn't they choose the same place before, huh?” Hera threw another hint as she leaned against the cabin window frame, waiting for Zane to recognize them while she glanced around the cabin.

It is truly the same location. The only difference is that it's not her who is tied up and looking wretched.

“I don't expect you to remember them, but they are the ones who burned me alive.” Hera wrinkled her nose, smelling an unpleasant odor as she opened that suspicious bottle and held it towards Zane while smiling. “Make them drink this.”

Zane tilted his head and stood rigidly there, glaring at Hera with a skeptical look in his eyes. The smile on Hera's face was somehow different, especially with that glint of excitement that flashed across her eyes. That expression somehow reminded him of the first time Hera really called out his name, at the cliff, near her mother's memorial, and then...

“... Did you remember something else?”

Hera simply kept smiling strangely and nudging the bottle at Zane. “I will tell you after you make them drink it.”

“What would happen if they drank it?”

“This will not kill them. It will only make them feel as if they are being burnt alive, like what they did to me.”

“... It's wrong. You can't do that. They will know it was you. With your future plans in mind, you should keep a lower profile.”

“You don't need to worry about that. He…” Hera used her opened bottle to gesture towards one of the men. “He would be assassinated later by the order of his family and that one... Well, he died protecting him. What a loyal friend, right?”

“Even so... wait... how did you know all of this?”

“My memory of that lifetime had already come back, so of course I knew.” Hera's chilling smile widened. “His stepmother hired Madam Crow to get rid of the nuisance that may or may not have threatened her son's chances of becoming the next baron, but they died too quickly and without feeling any pain. I'm not going to let it happen.”

Zane didn't move an inch, as if to indicate he wouldn't do what Hera asked him to do.

It was odd to hear Hera say those kinds of words. That girl never shared anything on her mind with him, since they never talked much in all those lifetimes. Sure, they had spoken a few times throughout their lifetime, but he always had the impression that Hera was concealing something from him.

“So, you really don't want to do it.” Hera's smile faded as she cocked her head. “Do I have to do everything all over again, even though you said you'd help in this lifetime?”

“I'm not going to help you hurt someone.” Zane tried to shake the bad feeling that had arisen in his heart when Hera's twisted expression gradually overlapped with her expression in his memory, when she stood on the edge of the cliff at their first official meeting.

“Yet you let them kill me.” Hera said it carelessly as she backed away from Zane, her eyes icy and frigid as she stared deep into Zane's soul.

Zane was at a loss for words.

“I should not have trusted your promise.” Hera tossed her hair as she approached the two men, but her jaw tightened when her strides came to a halt. She placed her palm against Zane's barrier, which kept her away from those two men, who were still unconscious.

Hera gritted her teeth and sneered through them. “Are you... trying... to... save them?” She reached out her hand for something on a nearby rack and furiously hurled it at Zane. “Don't you dare try to save them when you have never saved her?”

Zane avoided the can of peaches with his eyes widened in astonishment. “Her? What are you talking about?” His voice was shaky, with a tinge of confusion in it.

“The very least you can do is not get in the way of my revenge. Turn a blind eye just like what you always do!” Hera clenched her fists and slammed them against Zane's barrier, snarling at him with so much hatred in her eyes.

This is the first... second time Hera seems to hate him with a passion. Hera, who was always calm and quiet, was not someone who thought about revenge when all she wanted was to live quietly and focus on finding a way to put an end to this everlasting curse.

How could Zane not see this side of Hera? Well, he did see it once and didn't give it much thought. Everyone has their own level of patience. At the time, he assumed Hera had simply lost her patience and ended up... murdering someone.

Zane creased his eyebrows and took a step back. “Hera killed that m-... but then she seemed to not know anything about that.” His eyes widened in disbelief. “... You are not Hera?”

Hera scoffed and continued pounding her fist against Zane's barrier, each time harder than the last. She didn’t stop even when the barrier was already stained red with her bloody knuckles, as if she was attempting to shatter it just like that. “I'm the one who tried to protect her while you stood by and watched her die without doing anything!”

Something snapped inside Zane's mind when she heard Hera's outburst.

“I was slowed down by someone.”

That was his friend's explanation for why it took him so long to seal Hera's memories; he always assumed it was due to the lives she had lived. He didn't even realize his friend had said someone rather than something.

Someone... slowed me down.

Someone...